A conventional vending machine for canned drinks is provided with refrigerating and heating appliances, wherein one of them is selectively driven in accordance with a season, and refrigerated or heated articles are sold to the consumer. Moreover, a refrigerating cycle using refrigerant is adopted as the refrigerating appliances in most cases. The refrigerating cycle is composed of a compressor and an evaporator, which are installed in the vending machine. Air is refrigerated by exchanging heat with refrigerant circulating through the refrigerating cycle, and refrigerated air thus obtained circulates in the vending machine to refrigerate the articles.
However, in the conventional vending machine, since it is necessary to drive the compressor, consumed electric power is large and a commercial power supply of 100V is needed. Moreover, since the refrigerating cycle comprising the heavy compressor is installed therein, the conventional vending machine becomes heavy and large-sized. Accordingly, the conventional vending machine is fixedly installed at the storefront at which the commercial power supply is available in most cases. If it is once installed, it is very difficult to remove the conventional vending machine to another place because of necessity for securing the commercial power supply and restrictions due to weight and dimensions thereof.
On the other hand, the demand for sale of the articles by the vending machine is not entirely for all seasons, and there are many requests to limit the time for sale of the articles by the vending machine. For example, since the times when a skiing ground, a bathing beach, a festival or a place of an event is crowded with people are limited, the article can be effectively sold, if the vending machine is installed in such a place only in the aforementioned times. However, since the conventional vending machine has no mobility, it cannot meet such a request.